Philadelphia, and I haven't been there in about 5 years, gets a bad rap. It's old neighborhoods are no worse than NY's or Baaston's, but a lot of it, Penn's Landing, Center City (thank you, Frank Rizzo) is quite nice - unless, of course, the Street brothers haven't wrecked it since last I was there.

As to the abortionist, this is the big lie feminism pushed for years. Safe has never been part of abortion since Roe - even health standards required for a small clinic aren't observed - and the feminists have made sure everybody turned a blind eye.

One of The Blonde's buds from work was over a few weeks ago and the conversation turned to this generally. If people really knew what abortions were like, they'd put the feminists and the Lefties who back them in front of a Nuremburg-style tribunal.

Hint: the baby is still alive when it comes out; the saline doesn't quite kill it.

The Death Panels will soon issue their regulations requiring this Doctor's methods be used in partial birth abortions. It is cheaper than stopping the baby's head in the birth canal and clumsily inserting the scissors then. Let the murder victim come on out and be treated as a weak and helpless enemy...like Al Queada's tortured prisoners. Cheaper Deaths our the National goal under Obama's Regime.

Hint: the baby is still alive when it comes out; the saline doesn't quite kill it.

Oh, what do they care? Priorities, ed. Girls just wanna have fun. They went there to kill it because it ruined *everything*. They've got an important date tonight, tomorrow - whenever. This "doctor"? He's on his own. They had nothing to do with murdering babies. They left, remember?

Because people like Barack Obama fought tooth and nail against laws such as the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which requires that babies who are born alive in a failed abortion be given medical care, even though the "doctor" had intended to kill them.

Because of cases like Anders v. Floyd, 440 F. Supp. 535 (1977), where a premature infant was held to be merely a nonviable "fetus," despite living for 20 days after being born alive as a result of prostaglandin abortion, and further held to be "not a person whose life state law could legally protect," such that a federal injunction was issued against the state prosecution of the abortionist for murder.

Because we live in a bloodthirsty culture of death. Because when some people spoke out against such things, other people fought them and all to many others simply turned away and did not want to get involved.

Oh but hey, it's a fetus, not a real human being, so it doesn't count. am i rite?

"Fetus" covers a wide range. At week nine you're talking about a vaguely human-shaped lump of cells with a non-functioning brain and no ability to survive apart from its host. At week 40 you're talking about something functionally identical to a newborn baby.

The latter is a human being. Calling the former "a human being" kind of misses the point of the whole "being" part.

Revenant thinks splitting hairs gives the Lefties an out. Viability is a scam to get past the idea that life begins at conception (I know, above the Lefties' pay grade). Alive is alive, dead is dead. It's easier to commit murder when the victim isn't viewed as human.

Penny said...

""Pennsylvania isn't a third world country.""

But West Philadelphia is. Camden is, too. Feel free to add other cities, or enclaves within cities. Detroit? Newark? South side Chicago?

"We discovered that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers. Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.The State Legislature has charged the Department of Health (DOH) with responsibility for writing and enforcing regulations to protect health and safety in abortion clinics as well as in hospitals and other health care facilities. Yet a significant difference exists between how DOH monitors abortion clinics and how it monitors facilities where other medical procedures are performed.Indeed, the department has shown an utter disregard both for the safety of women who seek treatment at abortion clinics and for the health of fetuses after they have become viable. State health officials have also shown a disregard for the laws the department is supposed to enforce. Most appalling of all, the Department of Health’s neglect of abortion patients’ safety and of Pennsylvania laws is clearly not inadvertent: It is by design. …"

Gross negligence on the part of pretty much everyone involved at the health agencies...they should all be fired. I have real problems with abortion, particularly late term, but this story isn't really about abortion, except that people used bs pc reasons to avoid shutting down an obviously awful doctor. Every health care review process in PA should be reviewed, and a ton of people fired. A ton.

On a side note: Pennsylssippi and Pennsylbama are also acceptable.

Yeah, I always heard the middle refered to as Mississippi, but as someone who has been to both, Pennsylvania is GORGEOUS compared to Mississsippi. Just saying. Gorgeous.

This is the 2nd big state agency screwup to be announced in the last two days since Fat Eddie Rendell left office as governor of Pennsylvania. Coincidence? I think not- he likely pulled some strings to delay the announcements until he was out of the state capitol IMO.

We discovered that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws

You mean bureaucrats aren't doing their job? How often does THAT happen!

I have never heard the term Pennsylsippi or Pennsylbama, and I'm a Centre County Native. It's always been Pennsyltucky. Draw lines from Bradford to Waynesburg, and from Carbondale to CUmberland MD and youi've encompassed most of it.

I guess it's up to me to inform everyone that the doctor is black. The doctor was aborting fetuses which were also black and murdering black babies that didn't die on his first attempt. That's why it went on so long.

Abortion is only illegal when it's icky. When it's clean and no one can tell what's happening, it's jes' fine.

I agree with Pogo.

If you support abortion rights over the full term of pregnancy, you should own up to the fact that you support the right to do this sort of thing as long as it's done in the uterus where you can't see it.

Revenant thinks splitting hairs gives the Lefties an out. Viability is a scam to get past the idea that life begins at conception (I know, above the Lefties' pay grade). Alive is alive, dead is dead. It's easier to commit murder when the victim isn't viewed as human.

This shouldn't be a fight about abortion explicitly, regardless about how one feels about it, your abortion beliefs are just a "kicker".

The GJ had it right when they said:

Let us say right up front that we realize this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate. We ourselves cover a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion. For us as a criminal grand jury, however, the case is not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health ofmothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

"Instead, the PennsylvaniaDepartment of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortionclinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change ofadministration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions."

from the b'crat side, you are correct, but from the GJ side, whether or not you believe that abortion is wrong or right, it is the law, but what went on there clearly broke that law and was a crime. many crimes.

If I were in charge, I'd take all the evidence out of the police lockers, but it back in place and send EVERY PA Dept of Health official in there to clean the place with tooth brushes

then I'd stand them up against the wall and shoot them to encourage the others...

Seems to me this type of "deliver and perform the abortion outside the womb" procedure must occur pretty regularly with late-term abortions. Think of how hard it would be to chop up a 5 or 6 pound fetus inside the womb. The physics are daunting.

Hard for me to believe this is much worse than what goes on in any abortion mill.

from the article:In a typical late-term abortion, the fetus is dismembered in the uterus and then removed in pieces. That is more common than the procedure opponents call "partial-birth abortion," in which the fetus is partially extracted before being destroyed. Prosecutors said Gosnell instead delivered many of the babies alive.

He "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," District Attorney Seth Williams said.

How many people read that paragraph, thought one is legal; one is not!?

I'm a big believer that there are two ongoing abortions discussions, one regards the woman, her rights, her emotions etc. That's a discussion that generally excludes men. The other is one that centers around the fetus/child and regards such questions a when life begins and when it should have legal protection. That discussion includes men and women.

This article appears to the latter. I would really like someone to interview some of those women who sought the late term abortions. What were they thinking and what are they thinking/feeling now?

What was disturbing about the first several comments in Salon's story about this doctor is that nobody seemed bothered by the idea of six-month old babies being stabbed to death

The pro-abortion "moderates" seem to have reluctantly admitted that the question revolves around when a person becomes a person. For the die-hards, there's simply no arguing, much like any zealot. With the six-month old comment, though, I know staunch pro-abortion people that maintain a child isn't morally a person until 8 or 9 and said they could make convincing arguments to back that up. I'm still waiting, mind you, but they said they could back it up.

"I know staunch pro-abortion people that maintain a child isn't morally a person until 8 or 9 and said they could make convincing arguments to back that up."

Well that itself is a pretty convincing argument that THEY are not yet morally a person, so maybe they are on to something.

Well, these are the same sort of people that claim they are spiritual, but not religious; admitting that there is such a thing as a soul. When I ask when that soul/essence/energy/whatever leaves the body, we both agree it's when the corporal self dies. When I ask them when it enters the body...crickets...then a rapid change of subject.

Revenant thinks splitting hairs gives the Lefties an out. Viability is a scam to get past the idea that life begins at conception (I know, above the Lefties' pay grade). Alive is alive, dead is dead. It's easier to commit murder when the victim isn't viewed as human.

[sing song voice, dancing, and pointing]

Revenant's a Nazi! Revenant's a Nazi! La-la-la-la-LA-la!

Hey, Crack, ever hear of "The only good Indian is a dead one"? There's also the sacking of Jerusalem and the Rape of Nanking.

I went out of my way to avoid invoking Godwin.

If I wanted to go that route, I would have taken the Heinrich Himmler-Margaret Sanger trail

An IUD keeps a zygote from attaching to the uterus. But it's absurd to say that an IUD is murder.

We have laws on the books in regard to when people die.

It's the same law in all 50 states. And Washington D.C.

Total brain death.

When the baby starts having activity in her brain, then she's alive. When her brain loses all function, then she is dead.

"When does life begin?" is a vague question and unhelpful.

"When do people die?" is a far better question, a specific question that lawyers can answer. Because we have frickin' laws in place.

We don't apply those laws because the Supreme Court classified a baby in the womb as a legal non-person, and specifically said that our laws do not apply to her. She's outside our law, like a slave, or a Jew in Nazi Germany.

To apply our death statutes to the unborn is to give them the equal protection of the laws. The same rules that we apply to us.

I'm a big believer that there are two ongoing abortions discussions, one regards the woman, her rights, her emotions etc. That's a discussion that generally excludes men.

Quite to the contrary. That discussion is usually led and promoted by men.

Have you noticed how, in the last 38 years since Roe, nearly every abortion case is brought, not by any woman seeking an abortion, but by doctors -- male doctors -- who presume to speak for women, whether they want to be spoken for or not.

Moreover, in individual cases, you will note how, all too often, it is the man who demands that the woman abort, who drives her to the "clinic," and then promptly dumps her after doing so.

If you REALLY don't understand, you're either not as bright or not as honest as you think you are.

Possibly on both counts. Who's to know for sure? If you will follow the posts, though, you'll see that I missed a key response in the back-and-forth that made it crystal clear. Leo's response cleared it right up.

What's it say about you that you went out of your way to make hay about it?

numerous patients were hospitalized with fetal remains still inside; with perforated uteruses, cervixes, and bowels.

Ah yes, the notorious "free floating fetal head" problem.

If you're wondering why this abortion doctor is inducing labor and murdering infants, it is because he was having problems with the D & E procedure.

This notorious method (used after the 13th week of the pregnancy) requires the doctor to grab the baby in the uterus and rip her apart piece by piece.

When you are in the third trimester--which is where the big money is--the medical problem is that the baby is so big, that it is unsafe for the woman to undergo the procedure.

So doctors came up with partial-birth abortion.

And the problem, of course, is that this is a p.r. nightmare for the abortion industry. Partial-birth abortion is half constitutional right, half murder.

Or, as Kermit found out, 100% murder, depending on how pissed off the D.A. is.

This "house of horrors" is a direct result of the Carhart opinion, which debated whether infanticide--by which I mean an abortion that takes place outside of the womb--was a constitutional right or not. 5 Justices said it was. And then, in Carhart II, 5 Justices said it was not.

But they didn't bother reversing their legal opinion that a baby in the womb is a legal object and our laws do not protect her.

So imagine Kermit's surprise when he is arrested for murder. He is charged with doing what Supreme Court Justices openly talk about.

Possibly on both counts. Who's to know for sure? If you will follow the posts, though, you'll see that I missed a key response in the back-and-forth that made it crystal clear. Leo's response cleared it right up.

What's it say about you that you went out of your way to make hay about it?

After I saw your admission that you missed a key response, I went back and removed my comment -- it wouldn't have been honest of me to leave it there.

Nice try Zombie-Boi…but from what I can see it was an “exchange.” The balls in your court now…...

That's about as accurate as your knowledge of EMP's. I accept your apology.

lol

By the by, I just finished a short-story anthology of zombie fiction. Utterly awful stuff. Even the intro's to each story written by the editor were awful. All of them were basically cannibalism porn. No redeeming value and nothing to say about anything other than trying very hard to be as graphic as possible.

There were only three exceptions. A story from Max Brooks about the Great Wall Of China that didn't make it into World War Z. One set in feudal Japan. Finally one that pretty much sucked as a story, but was set in Granite City, IL, right across the river here.

Thank God I didn't pay full price for the book. It was in the sales stack at Borders.

Nor have I. I do not think you would find this kind of barbarism in the modern states of Mississippi and Alabama. I do not believe it reflects well on a Pennsylvanian to mock the residents of their own state while slandering those of another particularly in the instant circumstance.

@Scott M.:By the by, I just finished a short-story anthology of zombie fiction. Utterly awful stuff. Even the intro's to each story written by the editor were awful. All of them were basically cannibalism porn.

...well, how literate did you expect zombie writers to be? You should be thankful it wasn't 200 pages of "gnaaaaaahhh"...

But seriously, if you're liking Brooks' zombie fiction, you might like Day by Day Armageddon. Books 1 and 2 are out, and #3 is in the can, awaiting printing. Good story, good writing.

I've read and reread WWZ a couple of times and loved it. I read a first-time novelist try and blend superhero and zombie genres, with decent, if not out-of-the-ballpark success, but that's about it.

But for the couple of standouts I mentioned, these were awful and fully without any purpose save to gross someone out. The editor's preface to each story was the typical, self-aware, spooge-all-over-ourselves aggrandizement. In one such preface, for a story about a small down dealing with a general outbreak, he literally drew the line between us and them, meaning people that live in small towns. I don't live nor have I ever lived in a small town, but I don't like the implied elitism of the type of people that coined "outsider art".

I guess it's up to me to inform everyone that the doctor is black. The doctor was aborting fetuses which were also black and murdering black babies that didn't die on his first attempt. That's why it went on so long.

Rev made the "abusus non tollit usum" argument. I added an ironic affirmation that in reality demonstrated that some "usus"--abortion and slavery, for example--is not defensible.

The word you're searching for is "claimed", not "demonstrated". You did not demonstrate that abortion is indefensible; you claimed it, using the association fallacy to draw a parallel to slavery.

Anti-abortionists know that this doctor's disgusting and illegal behavior is abhorrent to approximately everyone in America. So they're cynically using it as an opportunity to push for restrictions on abortion in general, just like the gun grabbers are using a mass murderer's legal purchase of a handgun from a legal vendor to push for restrictions on handgun purchase in general.

Which was the behavior I was criticizing. If you think abortion is wrong, demonstrate why it is wrong. Don't just seize on the horrified reaction to an extreme event and use it to push your agenda.

"He "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," District Attorney Seth Williams said."

Maybe one of the MDs on here can comment, but I'll bet it is safer for the woman to do it this way. Since apparently this abortion "doctor" was a bit fumble-fingered, he may have decided to avoid further "perforated uteruses, cervixes, and bowels" by not attempting the equivalent of dismembering a small chicken using small pliers, while reaching through a flexible fire hose into a easily torn plastic bag. I mean really, once you're in the baby-killin' bidness, why NOT just ignore a silly legal fiction and minimize the risk to "mom" by extracting the baby the old fashioned way and then doing the necessary? Who was going to complain? His poor (in every sense) patients, desperate to be rid of the curse of motherhood? The government "inspectors" who had granted him de facto immunity from, um, everything?

"Among the relatively few cases that could be specifically documented, one was Baby Boy A. His 17-year-old mother was almost 30 weeks pregnant – seven and a half months – when labor was induced. An employee estimated his birth weight as approaching six pounds. He was breathing and moving when Dr. Gosnell severed his spine and put thebody in a plastic shoebox for disposal. The doctor joked that this baby was so big he could “walk me to the bus stop.”"

My son was born considerably earlier, at less than 3 pounds, and breathed without a ventilator.

Hanging is far too good for this monster, but I will personally volunteer to "snip" his spinal cord with a pair of rust hedge-trimming shears.

Don't just seize on the horrified reaction to an extreme event and use it to push your agenda.

If someone is horrified that a doctor would do this to a baby at six months gestation outside the womb, maybe they should be horrified that a doctor would do this to a baby at six months gestation inside the womb.

"Very often, the patient delivered without Gosnell being present. Lewis testified that one or two babies fell out of patients each night. They dropped out on lounge chairs, on the floor, and often in the toilet. If the doctor was not there, it was not unusual for no one to tend to the mother or the baby. In fact, several of the clinic’s workers refused to deal with the expelled babies or the placenta. So, after delivering babies, women and girls would have to just sit and wait – sometimes on a toilet for hours – for Gosnell to arrive." . . . . .James Johnson, who supposedly cleaned the clinic and bagged its infectious waste, confirmed Lewis’s account. He testified that sometimes patients “miscarried or whatever it was” into the toilet and clogged it. He described how he had to lift the toilet so that someone else – he said it was too disgusting for him – could get the fetuses out ofthe pipes.

If someone is horrified that a doctor would do this to a baby at six months gestation outside the womb, maybe they should be horrified that a doctor would do this to a baby at six months gestation inside the womb.

It was already illegal to abort a six month old fetus in Pennsylvania, whether inside the womb or outside of it.

So let's not pretend this is about convincing people that abortion a 6-month old fetus is wrong. The people of Pennsylvania were convinced of that a long time ago. This is about convincing people that abortion is always wrong at any stage of pregnancy -- and exploiting Gosnell's crimes to push that view is intellectually dishonest.

Rev - maybe the "people" of Pennsylvania were convinced, but apparently the bureaucrats who actually run the state disagreed - so they granted functional immunity. Someone above used the phrase "gross negligence", but that is incorrect - we are talking willful misconduct, at the very least.

"Based on her observations, the [National Abortion Federation] evaluator determined that there were far too many deficiencies at the clinic and in how it operated to even consider admitting Gosnell toNAF membership. On January 4, 2010, she wrote to Gosnell informing him of NAF’s decision and outlining the areas in which his clinic was not in compliance. The evaluator told the Grand Jury that this was the first time in her experience that NAF had outright rejected a provider for membership. Usually, if a clinic is able to fix deficiencies andcome into compliance with the standards, NAF will admit them. Gosnell’s clinic, however, was deemed beyond redemption.We understand that NAF’s goal is to assist clinics to comply with its standards, not to sanction them for deficiencies. Nevertheless, we have to question why an evaluatorfrom NAF, whose stated mission is to ensure safe, legal, and acceptable abortion care, and to promote health and justice for women, did not report Gosnell to authorities.

Ooh, ooh let me answer!

Because, as distasteful and low rent as they found Gosnell to be, he is part of their dirty little fraternity and an attack on one is an attack on all.

Why would revulsion to partial-birth abortion lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade when Roe v. Wade doesn't prevent the government from outlawing partial-birth abortion?

You're like Kevin Bacon in Animal House. "All is well! All is well!"

I think that any graphic discussion of "free-floating fetal heads" is pretty much a downer to the whole liberty/privacy/freedom/we are the world class of hippie fuckups.

It's called reality and it's a bitch.

I think there are too many dead bodies in too many closets. I think even Anthony Kennedy, who's head is so far up his ass he is gnawing on his sphincter, has to realize that all is not well, that Casty did not resolve anything, and that Scalia was right all along.

He might not say it, but he knows it.

But turn the page, close the door, keep us in the dark, repress, suppress and oppress, and maybe we can keep that august opinion going for another decade or two.

What's a few million baby corpses, anyway? Just invest in a crematorium and keep the cats outside. That's the lesson here.

Does the 3rd World State of Pennsylvania possess a bar association, perchance?

"Staloski blamed the decision to abandon supposedly annual inspections of abortion clinics on DOH lawyers, who, she said, changed their legal opinions and adviceto suit the policy preferences of different governors. Under Governor Robert Casey, she said, the department inspected abortion facilities annually. Yet, when Governor Tom Ridge came in, the attorneys interpreted the same regulations that had permitted annualinspections for years to no longer authorize those inspections. Then, only complaintdriveninspections supposedly were authorized. Staloski said that DOH’s policy during Governor Ridge’s administration was motivated by a desire not to be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions."

But turn the page, close the door, keep us in the dark, repress, suppress and oppress, and maybe we can keep that august opinion going for another decade or two.

So, to sum up your opinion... even though this was already illegal, and even though the Supreme Court has already ruled that it is fine for it to be illegal... people will be so outraged that they'll demand that something else entirely be banned. Then partial birth abortion won't just be illegal -- it'll be EXTRA illegal. Illegal with chocolate frosting and sprinkles!

I guess I can't rule that out. After all, people are proposing that ban "assault weapons" in response to a shooting that didn't involve an assault weapon. There are a lot of idiots in the world.

"It was already illegal to abort a six month old fetus in Pennsylvania, whether inside the womb or outside of it.

So let's not pretend this is about convincing people that abortion a 6-month old fetus is wrong. The people of Pennsylvania were convinced of that a long time ago. This is about convincing people that abortion is always wrong at any stage of pregnancy -- and exploiting Gosnell's crimes to push that view is intellectually dishonest."

Althouse asked, why was nothing done.

I think it is about convincing people that abortion of a 6 month old fetus is wrong.

Yes, it was against the law... but why was nothing done? Could it be that nothing was done because those who inhabit the agencies who are supposed to provide oversight believe two things? First, that it's most particularly better for poor minorities to abort than bring a child into their world... basically eugenic beliefs, and second, that the legal limits on abortion are wrong. It's not as though the belief that abortion should be available up to the day before a child is born normally is particularly rare. Not even Obama could bring himself to offend his constituents by coming out against late-term partial-birth abortions, and Teller is a heroic martyr.

I don't think that the claim that this can't be about late term abortions on account of them being illegal in Pennsylvania is supportable.

If horror of late term abortions equaled the fact they were illegal... why *didn't* anyone stop this?

They looked the other way because they see the right to abortion as sacrosanct, and don't want to do ANYTHING that could jeopardize it. They feared that Christianist Governor Ridge might force them to actually enforce the law in a way that could make abortions more difficult to obtain or more expensive.

They probably believed that nobody could be quite as despicable as Gosnell turned out to be, but let's not forget that it is perfectly legal in Penn. to dismember (in the womb, of course) an otherwise healthy and quite possibly viable 23 week old fetus. Once you are morally cool with that, what does a little extra time and 24 inches of location change really matter? I am sure many of those "people" don't agree with the laws prohibiting abortions after 24 weeks or banning PBA, and this was their silent protest - and so what if it cost the lives of some disposable babies and disposable women?

2 and 3 are also viable, so to speak - I'm an "all of the above" kind of guy.

The lesson here for conservatives is that we can pass laws all the live-long day, but it does not mean sh*t if the people running the "permanent government" choose not to enforce them. How many of these snivel servants are going to lose jobs or pensions over this - I'm betting on none. At most some early retirements with pension.

Did you know, for instance, that the Supreme Court held that there could be no health regulations of abortion in the first trimester, even for the mother's health?

That's incorrect, unless you're using "regulation" as code for "restriction". Roe allowed regulations related to protecting the health of the mother, e.g. checking to make sure the doctor isn't an unqualified hack with an untrained staff. In any event, the original trimester system from Roe was modified by subsequent Supreme Court rulings.

Pennsylvania, like every other state, has regulations in place governing how abortions may be performed. Those restrictions are constitutionally valid, and are enforced except in situations where the inspecting authority is corrupt or incompetent.

So if you're wondering why state and federal authorities decided to stop inspecting this abortion clinic, well, stop wondering.

Bans on non-lifesaving third-trimester abortions are constitutional under Roe and all subsequent Supreme Court decisions, and are illegal in Pennsylvania and most other states. There has never been a point in American history in which what this guy was doing was even a teeny little bit legal.

Your theory is cute and all, but it makes no sense. The explanation's simple -- the bureaucrats were crooked and/or corrupt. :)

So, to sum up your opinion... even though this was already illegal, and even though the Supreme Court has already ruled that it is fine for it to be illegal... people will be so outraged that they'll demand that something else entirely be banned.

Have you read Carhart? It blows my mind that you think D & E is "something else entirely" than D & X.

I mean, I know that's Anthony Kennedy's position. But he's the only one saying that. Everybody else is appalled, appalled, appalled or right, right, right.

But you actually think it matters if a baby of the same gestational age is in the womb, out of the womb, or partially in and partially out?

That's why Carhart will be the death of Roe, because the born/unborn distinction in regard to homicide is just an ugly, stupid prejudice. And people are waking up to that.

"Let's keep her foot in the birth canal so I can kill her."

You can overrule Carhart (which they did) and you can throw Kermit under the bus (which they are) but it is glaringly obvious to more and more citizens that Roe v. Wade has killed a baby or two.

If I understand your position correctly, it is that all errors have been corrected and from this point forward all the baby-killing will be completely illegal? Glad to hear it.

"All is well!"

Some of us who are a little more cynical might look at the massive, homicidal fuck-up that are the Carhart opinions and decide that our legal authorities have zero fucking credibility in this area.

Your mileage may vary.

From Carhart II:

Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms—everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus…

The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp…

Rev... unless your #1 is true... how could #2 and #3 be true without the people involved being utter monsters?

Most people are capable of being utter monsters if they don't have to actually see the people being hurt.

My guess is that they figured "it's a clinic for poor black women, who cares". They may or may not have had their palms greased. In either case they don't appear to have ever bothered conducting an inspection -- they probably figured the guy was providing substandard care, but I doubt they realized he was killing not just fetuses, but grown women too.

No, they just misread the bit about militias. Besides, anyone who supports Congressional regulation of abortion apparently can't read the Constitution either. There's nothing in there giving Congress authority over abortion.

So far as the abortion issue is concerned, the only people standing on firm Constitutional ground are the ones who think the individual states should be allowed to decided for themselves.

I don't. I think D&E and D&X are both "something else entirely" from the first-trimester abortions that constitute 90% of all abortions performed, that you think Americans will rise up to ban, and that you mysteriously blame for this particular crime spree.

Now, if you want to modify your original claim to say that eventually Americans will be so outraged by things like this that they will pressure the Supreme Court to allow bans on post-viability abortions... sure, I'll buy that. Could happen. It'll cut the abortion rate by 5%.

It was already illegal to abort a six month old fetus in Pennsylvania, whether inside the womb or outside of it.

You're forgetting the health exception. Tiller, for example, made a lot of money using that loophole. His website even said that if your pregnancy was too far along to have a legal abortion, you should call his office to see what they could do (i.e. have them explain to you how to game the health exception).

Revenant, tell me that human dna produces anything other than human beings and I'll publicly apologize on here for my glaring ignorance on the subject. Otherwise, your definition of what constitutes a human being is nothing more than the meager rationalization of your inherent callousness towards humanity in situ of the womb. Human conception is the beginnings of humanity. Your partitioning of the stages of the human growth cycle in the womb doesn't negate that a human being is under construction and will become nothing but. Why you choose to deny this, I do not understand. So help me understand. I'm quite fluent in biology, so if you can, please spare me the effects of your snark.

You're reading the decision too simplistically. Note the Roe text for the first trimester: "the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician".

Like I pointed out above, under Roe the states could and did require that the person performing the procedure be a qualified physician, and of course states have a wide range of powers related to the licensing and testing of such and the conditions under which they may operate. What they could not do was place restrictions on the medical procedure itself.

Here's what Roe had to say about third-trimester abortions:

For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother

Pennsylvania did this decades ago. So, like I pointed out before, the "abortions" Gosnell was performing would have been illegal even if he hadn't induced labor first.

unless doctor decides abortion is okay (i.e. the "health" exception)

Terribly offensive, I know. We can't have doctors and patients making decisions about what's best for a patient's health. That's what lawyers and politicians are for.

For instance, we still can't require that an abortion take place in a hospital.

There is no legitimate reason to have that requirement in place. The only reason pro-lifers push for it is that they know it makes abortions more expensive and difficult to obtain. If your concern was actually for the health of the mother, you would demand that midwives be outlawed and all births take place in hospitals. Birth is, after all, three times more likely to kill a woman than a second-trimest abortion is, and a hundred times more likely to kill her than an abortion performed in the eight weeks.

In fact, Roe is such a badly written opinion that states could not tell if they could require that an abortionist have a medical degree. That question was up in the air for two years.

Wrong. Read the case you cited. Connecticut correctly read the Roe decision as allowing them to require that the abortionist be a licensed physician. A private citizen claimed otherwise, took them to court, and lost. The states weren't confused; Patrick Menillo and the Supreme Court of Connecticut were.

Also note that this was decided 35 years ago, years before Gosnell's clinic opened for business. Which makes your "the state thought it couldn't regulate him" theory even more bizarre -- particularly since it apparently DID regulate him up until the mid-90s.

Carhart covered D&X procedures performed on non-viable fetuses during the second trimester. The murder charges against Gosnell stem from his inducing labor in women who were well in their third trimester, waiting until they gave birth to viable infants, then killing the babies with scissors.

That has never, at any point, been legal, nor does it qualify under any of the Roe exceptions or any of the exceptions identified in the rulings since.

It must be nice to have such a greater understanding of all of the restrictions permitted by Roe than the justices of the Supreme Court did. To be sure, a great many state legislators thought that Roe left room for regulation as well.

The states passed laws well within Roe's rules, and the Supreme Court struck them all down, with rare -- very rare -- exceptions. Indeed, even Justice O'Connor noted that --"no legal rule or doctrine is safe from ad hoc nullification by this Court when an occasion for its application arises in a case involving state regulation of abortion. The permissible scope of abortion regulation is not the only constitutional issue on which this Court is divided, but -- except when it comes to abortion -- the Court has generally refused to let such disagreements, however longstanding or deeply felt, prevent it from evenhandedly applying uncontroversial legal doctrines to cases that come before it."-- Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 814 (1986)

In short, the Court routinely moved the goalposts and changed the rules to strike down almost any attempt to enact laws in this area.

Now, of course, Roe is NOT the law. Rather, the "undue burden" test of Casey is the law. And what the hell is an "undue burden"? Who knows? But it certainly is much more a slippery "standard" that permits courts to overturn any other laws that they wish on wholly arbitrary grounds.

I'm not forgetting the health exception,it just doesn't apply here. You can't plead "health exception" when you're performing the "abortion" by inducing labor and then killing the infant after it is completely separated from its mother's body. Not even D&X went that far, and D&X has been illegal for years.

As for people gaming the health exception, what's your suggested alternative? Eliminating it has 15% support among Americans, which means that two-thirds of pro-lifers think it is a retarded idea.

That means either leaving it up to doctors and patients, or having government bureaucrats second-guess doctors and patients. I guess which one of those you favor depends on how awesome you think ObamaCare will be. :)

You can't plead "health exception" when you're performing the "abortion" by inducing labor and then killing the infant after it is completely separated from its mother's body.

By the way, that "maroon" comment was directed at you.

Of course the exception can be pleaded then. Of course it HAS BEEN. And courts have bought it.

Example -- the woman will experience depression if the "procedure" results in a living baby. And since the woman's health is thus at risk, and since she also has a fundamental right to decide whether or not to beget children, i.e. have a living baby, and it is only a "baby" if she chooses to have a baby, rather than chooses to abort, then the state may not restrict her from doing so.

It is by this fraudulent (mental) health exception that there are ZERO restrictions on abortion for all practical purposes and effects.

Why? The sperm and the egg had human DNA, too. Plus, they were alive. Which makes me wonder: where'd the extra human being go when the sperm and the egg combined to produce the zygote?

Your partitioning of the stages of the human growth cycle in the womb doesn't negate that a human being is under construction and will become nothing but.

The more accurate statement would be "an organism is growing and usually ends up as a bloody discharge but becomes a human being about one time in four". Between implantation failures and miscarriages, a fertilized egg's odds are not good.

I think human rights should be reserved for human beings, not things that might eventually be human beings.

Of course the exception can be pleaded then. Of course it HAS BEEN. And courts have bought it.

Then you should have no problem citing a court case in which a doctor "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies", then successfully pleaded for a health exception.

I'm open to learning new things. Please share.

Example -- the woman will experience depression if the "procedure" results in a living baby.

We're talking about a procedure that DOES result in a living baby, little brain. That's why pleading the health exception makes no sense.

There is no legitimate reason to have a hospital requirement in place.

Who the fuck are you to overturn a health regulation?

A hospital regulation would keep a lot of this evil shit from happening.

And if you're worried about costs, put a fucking condom on.

Like I want to get a lecture from drunk people who don't use birth control. "But it costs money to go to the hospital." Yeah, well, it's an invasive medical procedure. People die from invasive medical procedures. Every day.

Have you read the Carhart list of all the bad shit that can happen in a D & E? What's wrong with doing that procedure in a hospital? You know, where the equipment is.

Also, and I know you don't give a shit, you can put the baby in an incubator and try to keep her alive in a hospital.

"I have a constitutional right to avoid hospitals and take my chances with the laissez-faire guy with the scalpel."

And the bakers have a constitutional right to suffer hot fingers.

It's Lochner all over again. The Supreme Court deregulated the abortion industry. And for what?So you can save a few bucks?

Just to be clear on your fucking logic, we can only start worrying about women dying in abortions when they start outnumbering women dying in childbirth?

So when your sister or your daughter bleeds to death on a operating table because there is no equipment in the room that can save her, please be sure to write one hundred times, "She's a statistical anomaly and it's okay."

While I'm on this rant, let me point out that the Supreme Court has said that partial-birth abortion is a constitutional right for health reasons, but you can't require a hospital stay because that's too fucking healthy. It's irrationally healthy.

Carhart covered D&X procedures performed on non-viable fetuses during the second trimester.

Let me translate that into English for you.

Carhart covered killing the baby halfway outside the womb in the fourth month, fifth month, or sixth month of the pregnancy, but not in the seventh month, eighth month or ninth month, or when the baby could survive outside the womb.

You do know that no premature baby can survive outside the womb unless you put her in an incubator, right? Which your wonderful abortion clinic does not have.

Of course "viability" is just a theory, it's not actually something that you want to test by, say, trying to keep the baby alive. No no, that would require a hospital and that costs money. So let's just assume non-viability and rip her into pieces.

Tiller killed in the third trimester. Carhart still does. And Ginsburg writes chillingly about killing babies with "anomalies."

She means the retards, Rev. Down's syndrome is diagnosed in the third trimester. And she insists on the constitutional right to terminate them. But I'm sure you can explain why that's okay.

Then you should have no problem citing a court case in which a doctor "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies", then successfully pleaded for a health exception.

Yeah, it's cslled Carhart

I re-read it.

Pre-viable abortions, post-viable abortions, they tossed the whole law because there was no "health" exception.

The death rate for abortion ranges from 0.00001% (for the first few months, when most abortions are performed) to a whopping 0.003% if you wait until the last minute. The overall death rate is 0.0007%, according to the CDC. The chances of a hospital procedure killing you via secondary infection are approximately one in a thousand.

What's wrong with doing that procedure in a hospital?

Doctors and patients are free to perform the procedure in a hospital if they want to. There's no law against it, after all.

Also, and I know you don't give a shit, you can put the baby in an incubator and try to keep her alive in a hospital.

States are permitted to ban abortion of viable fetuses, and putting a pre-viable fetus in an incubator just lets it die warm. So the only reason to legally require that an incubator be handy would be... because you want to allow doctors to *try* killing a viable fetus, but then try to save its life if they fail? That's not very rational.

Yeah, it's cslled Carhart. I re-read it. Pre-viable abortions, post-viable abortions, they tossed the whole law because there was no "health" exception.

I didn't ask if laws were required to have the health exception -- they are.

I asked for an example of a doctor successfully arguing the health exception in court after delivering a live, third-trimester baby, then killing it, then pleading the health exception. Neither of the Carhart cases that went to the Supreme Court fit that description. Try again.

It applies directly to my comment which was that if you don't like what Gosnell did to babies six months along outside the womb, you should have a problem with the same thing being done to babies six months along inside the womb.

And your alternatives to the health exception are false choices. You could simply get rid of the mental health exception. Additionally, I think it absurd to say that killing another person is between a woman and her doctor. That has nothing to do with loving state run health care and everything to do with thinking abortion is murder. That would be like arguing that it's Statist to support the police taking domestic violence calls because the argument is between husband and wife and therefore not the State's business.